cliff, the 43rd Baron de Clare spoke this at 9:00 a.m. GMT today before the House of Lords:

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the Braves Dynasty Rebuild shall last again for fourteen years, men will still say, ‘This was their Finest Day.'”

Good offense: check.

Good pitching: check.

Good baserunning: check.

Impact on a pennant race: check. Gained a whole game on the Phillies and a game and a half on the gNats. Gained a game and a half on the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Brewers in prospective wildcard standings.

Good news on the player development / rebuild front: check. Touki Toussaint isn’t quite great, but he is already more than workable and likely to continue to improve. Acuna Matata should be renamed by granting to him an altered version of the moniker of the patron saint of Bravesdom: Bad Ronald. Johan Camargo is a middle class man’s version of Young Chipper. Chad Sobotka can sling it, hard. The Polish Prince gave up 1 and WENT 8 INNINGS. All hail the Prince.

Yes, the Fish are not a good team. But good teams are supposed to beat bad teams. The team of April has returned and seeks to bring its vengeance on the naysayers and the nattering nabobs of negativism.

And just imagine the shutdown pitching when we get to September 1. Just win, baby.

Chief, I feel similarly about Camargo. I don’t expect him to be anything more than what we see today, and what that amounts to is a guy I want to see in the lineup just about every night. He’s a contributor.

I think the Braves should be set on the infield for this offseason. They should direct their funds to the outfield, obviously.

PS. I hit post and realize they are going to need to do some homework at the catcher position, but everyone already knows I don’t throw a fortune at JT Realmuto and instead settle for a younger Kurt Suzuki if he can be found.

@4 Camargo’s development this year has been a huge boon to the Braves – he’s a good defender at 3B/SS and increased his walk rate and power this season to become an above-average hitter.

IMO, that doesn’t mean that Austin Riley is blocked… the Braves could easily give Riley a chance to primarily play a corner outfield spot (he certainly has the arm for it) with spot starts at 3B (Johan moving to SS) if Dansby is out of the lineup for whatever reason.

On the other hand, if the Mets take a liking to Riley, I’d let him go for DeGrom.

Kind of a meaningless thing, but I’d like to see Atlanta enter the playoffs with 5 hitters in the lineup with 20+ homers. Currently, there are 3 who are a shoe in, but Markakis and Camargo could possibly reach that milestone.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the need for panic over there in Washington. I think that having watched Bobby Cox has etched that mindset into my brain — sure, they may not recover well enough to grab the division. That team, though, is freaking loaded, and there’s no reason they can’t grab a wildcard spot and make a lot of noise in the playoffs. The only thing to do is ride the tumultuous waves of a long baseball season knowing there’s still a month and a half, minimum, of baseball to be played. If any team can rattle off a 14-game winning streak, it’s those guys.

So the thing to do is to stay calm and be confident.

Although I do enjoy seeing those guys implode and freak out. It makes me forever thankful for Bobby Cox and those Atlanta Braves of the ’90s.

@15: The subtext is Harper. This franchise was always going to be hard-pressed to keep him against clubs who were inevitably going to offer more money. If the team were *successful,* that would be a major selling point. “Dysfunctional underachievers” doesn’t have the same nonpecuniary benefit.

Oh, and to recover, all they need to do is bring back managers who are former Braves, particularly their former managers Felipe Alou, Dusty Baker and Davey Johnson, though you could throw in Joe Torre as well. Hell, Tony LaRussa, too.

If they want to take one of the spots that currently belongs to the Brewers or Phillies, they have to climb six games in the standings by outwinning the Cardinals, Pirates, Rockies, Dodgers, AND either the Phillies or Brewers. It’s possible they could do it if they rip off a 14-game winning streak, but it’s all but impossible if they don’t.

Rley has done better lately, but even after going something like 8 for his last 12 with 2 doubles and a hr, he’s batting. 284 with a .773 ops in AAA. I’m pulling for him, but at 21 he may need another year or 2 and is definitely not ready now. Camargo, with a .265 ba and. 802 ops, is far superior at this point, and I don’t expect that to change next year.

@22, the real issue is that, after an initial nice trade for Kelvin Herrera, he didn’t get anybody else. You can swallow getting rid of Kintzler and Kelley to “send a message” or something, if you actually address the roster.

I’ve been thinking Camargo is our new Prado, but he’s showing more power than Prado did. (Of course, offense is up across the league compared to Prado’s prime 5-8 years ago.) If he hits for more average, he could be our new Marcus Giles.

Even if this turns out to be the best year of his career, he’s a really good little player. If he keeps improving the way he has been, he could be special.

Kind of amazing he’s better than Lt. Dans, but their body of major league work certainly all seems to point in that direction.

Didn’t realize until today how much the schedule favors the Phillies going forward. They have 17 remaining games against the Marlins and Mets while the Braves have nine, and the Braves have a nasty seven-game road trip against the Diamondbacks and Giants while the Phillies have a four-gamer in Colorado (sandwiched in between the two final head-to-head series, for whatever that’s worth). Braves also have their full slate against the Pirates coming up, while the Phillies have finished with them. The bright spot is that the Phils do have two extra game against the Cubs.

If the end of this Marlins series is a high point, September 13 may be a low point. If the Braves are still within two games on that day, they’ve got a real shot.

If they don’t catch us by September 1, they won’t. Nobody has the 40 man reinforcements that we have. Lane Adams will be added as designated pinch runner. An extra catcher gives you Flow and Zuke as pinch hitters on their off days. Rio may give you a competent left handed AB or two. The bullpen / starting reinforcements will be huge.

@31 I’ve come around to the idea that Dansby Swanson is one of those guys who is going to take a few years to put it together at the plate. His defense has become his saving grace, but if he puts it all together he will go from a 2 bWAR guy to a 4-5 bWAR guy.

@35, If you’re right, then keeping Camargo as a pretty-much everyday supersub can help give Dansby the time to mature at short and for Riley to break into the majors at third. I really think installing Camargo as an everyday presence at third undercuts a lot of his hidden value as the linchpin of team depth.

@38, to qualify for that role, the criteria seems to be a bat that is worthy of being in the lineup every day and versatility in the field around much of the diamond. Not sure Dansby qualifies for either of those things at the present time. Whereas Camargo is proving himself quite plainly.

I’ll admit to being a Camargo skeptic last year, but I have come around fully this year. The key difference, I think, is his increased plate discipline and selectivity. While it is not unusual for a player to improve in that regard over the course of a career, it is really quite rare for a young player to improve so much in that area from one season to the next.

And some never do (looking at you, Frenchy).

In fact, the increase in walks and therefore OBP likely will make him a better hitter than our old friend Prado.

@43 I don’t agree – especially having given up another big time prospect now. Maybe you’re being sarcastic, I dunno, but I think Archer is a bad bet. I think AA did much better at the deadline – gave up less to get more. Plus the laser focus on improving the team in exactly the right areas made the whole better than the sum of the parts.

I have two questions: Why does the organist play “I’ve been workin on the railroad” when Dan Dietrich comes to the plate? Who is the guy in the Braves dugout who looks like WH Chief of Staff Kelly? Did I miss something in the news today and he switched jobs?

Some of you guys must not be college football fans. The organist is playing the UGA fight song to troll Dietrich, who went to Georgia Tech. He played Rocky Top the last time Dietrich was up for some reason (I’m not familiar with any Tennessee-Ga Tech rivalries).

The organist is Matthew Kaminski (@bravesorganist on the Twitter) and his song selections for opposing players are always fun to listen for.

In this series I’ve noticed Aqualung (Jethro Tull lead singer Ian Anderson) for Brian Anderson and the Batman theme for JT Riddle. His Twitter lists some of the songs: TMNT theme for Rafael Ortega, Havana for Starlin Castro, and yes, Glory Glory (UGA fight song) for Dietrich.

@93 – Duvall has all of 20 PA’s for us, I’m not ready to write him off quite yet. Speaking of, is it notable to anyone else how little he’s played? I get that Ender’s been hot & Duvall hasn’t shown us much as of yet, but it seems a little weird to trade for somebody with his track record & then barely play him.

It’s a long season and Bad Ronald won’t hit two homers in every game, but July is emphatically over, and this team in August looks a lot like the team that made doubters like me into true believers in April, May, and June.

Some sucker has to win the World Series every year, and to paraphrase Kinky Friedman, why the hell not us?

My initial thought was to wonder if AA would acquire someone who could move the needle in the playoffs a la Verlander. So I looked at some candidates, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a slam dunk other than if Donaldson gets healthy. Sergio Romo might be a good addition too.

Not holding out any hope for Donaldson. I unfortunately drafted him in the 2nd round of the BJ fantasy league, and he has contributed exactly nothing except clogging up a DL spot for essentially the entire year.

I’m definitely down for Sergio Romo. Unfortunately I also have to agree on Donaldson (who I also drafted). He was having a terrible year, then he went down with an injury that he keeps suffering setbacks from. That just all spells stay away for me.

We are 2 games ahead of the Phillies, 8 games ahead of the gnats, and only 1 game behind the Cubs for best record in the NL. This is fun! Of course if we were in Boston’s division, we would be 17.5 games behind them!

I have had vague ideas from time to time to learn a little Spanish. Until that is I finally watched that interview @146.

Good Lord. His word count per minute must be at least twice that of you and I conversing in English.

Apropos you might say. If you can think fast and then react even faster to match that thought with action then talking about it afterwards is simple. Understanding what was said, less so. It matters not of course, just watch.

If you let Teheran eat innings the first few months and stick with the plan to provide an extra day of rest whenever possible, you're less likely to end up in a position where you may need to limit the younger arms down the stretch